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CORVETTE TODAY #187 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid November 2023
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Jul 11, 2025
Well, the UAW strike appears to have been resolved. And we can look towards the holiday season with promise and excitement. As he always does every other week, Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger joins your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to bring you the most current Corvette news available. Here are a few of the topics Steve and Keith discuss... 1. The E-Ray is honored with the 2023 Vehicle Engineer Team award 2. All of the 2024 Owner's Manuals are now available for download 3. The final race for Corvette Racing 4. A GM parts catalog leak confirms the upcoming ZR1 with a turbo powered LT7 engine
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0:00
[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
0:06
talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
0:13
president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
0:20
City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
0:27
Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Wheelcraft has the ultimate holiday gift offer for you. Buy a $100 Wheelcraft
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Corvette Forum.com. Welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. It's time to bring you the latest Corvette
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news and headlines with my pal Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Keith is here every other week and we keep you
2:54
current and uptodate on what's happening with America's sports car. Keith, welcome back to the show. Buddy, I can't
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believe next week is Thanksgiving week. It's really crazy how fast this year's gone. And now we're getting into the
3:05
holiday season. I know a lot of people have already started putting their cars away or they've already put them away. Yeah, it's just that time of year. The time
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change just went through. So, I'm still all confused. My dog's all confused because he don't know when he's getting his food.
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I like this time of year. It's exciting. And there's always news with Corvettes. So, let's get to it. Let's get to it, buddy. Let's get a
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Corvette production update at the Bowling Green assembly plant. So, we pulled the latest VIN counts from Roger Keel's spreadsheet over on Facebook.
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It's a little couple days older, but it shows that the VIN counts are 4,762 Corvette Stingrays, and we have another
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1300 or so Corvette Z06s that have been built so far. So, the total for the 2024 model year, we're looking at 6,130
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Corvettes or so that have been produced. Wow. So far, we have nos produced, at least no customers. As we mentioned, I think
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on the last show, the earliest TPWs we've seen for the -ay is still December 4th. I would not even be surprised that
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that changed. Hopefully, they can start getting some stuff and moving it, but there are some additional parts challenges at Bowling Green and
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hopefully they can fight through it. So far, no E-rays, but they are still banging out the Stingrays and the Z06s.
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Yeah. And at a good pace as well. So, that's really good. And that's really promising. So, hopefully we will get these -ays before the end of the year.
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Also, speaking of the -ay, we found that they were honored with the 2023 vehicle engineering team award.
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That's right. Yeah. Corvette won an industry award from the Society of Plastics Engineers. You can imagine what
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their gala festival is going to be like, Steve. I'm sure. Yeah. The joint team is made up from GM and its vendors, and they're going to
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receive this award from the 52nd Society of Plastic Engineers Automotive Innovation Awards Gala in November.
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Here's what they liked about the -ay's use of composite materials. It says, "The new Ray earned this award for use
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of several plastic and composite technologies, including a carbon fiber reinforced epoxy wheel, which is
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basically the carbon fiber wheel from Carbon Revolution. And then they also like the hybrid battery interconnect
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board, plastic oil cooling lines, a battery module side plates, and the battery module structure itself." Again,
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congratulations to the team. May it be the first of many awards for this hybrid sports car. I bet it is. I think it's one of many
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coming up. Unfortunately, we had another part shortage and it shut down Bowling Green assembly plant for a day or so.
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It did. Actually, we've lost two days over the last two weeks of production. So, not just one shortage. It's actually
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the same shortage from what we understand. So, apparently both are due to GM's Bedford casting plants up in
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Indiana. They make aluminum castings. Of course, they have the Bedford 6, which is the really big joints on the car, but
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they also make engine cradles as well. We've heard both things and they're just showing up late to the plant. The plant
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missed two shifts the week of October 30th and then just again last Tuesday. Both shifts were idle due to the lack of
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parts. I don't know if this was due to the UAW strike which may have impacted other GM facilities getting stuff to
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Bedford which then gets to us. We don't know what the problem is but hopefully it's just again one of these things that can be resolved real soon.
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Yeah, hopefully it's just a little blip in the road for sure. And the good news is you can now download the 2024 owner
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manuals for Stingray Z06 and -ay. Yeah, some might consider reading an owner's
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manual, some pretty dry reading. Yeah, but for those with the new Corvette on the way, it's a pretty good way to acquaint yourself with the various
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controls and operations of the new car. I've certainly would dive in. I've got my U-Ray coming. One of the cool things
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we do have with this is that a guy in the Corvette forum did do an version of the owner's manual. So, we went in and
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highlighted it all with their specific content. So, even if you're familiar with the controls of the C8 Corvette
6:30
previously, there's still a lot to know for the -ay. And of course, people are still getting their Z06s. So, it's just
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again a great way to acquaint yourself with the operations and how your car works. Of course, don't forget the
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breakin, the service guides, and all the other stuff, but for even experienced owners might want to pop in and see how
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they're doing things these days. Some of those service schedules have changed a little bit over the years, it's just a good way to keep a breast on it.
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Absolutely right. Well, buddy, let's take our first break. When we come back, we'll talk about Corvette racing and
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And now back to Corvette Today with your host and my husband Steve Garrett.
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Hey, thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube. It's the only current podcast dedicated to
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Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet. Every other week we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening with America Sports Car. Keith, let's first
11:01
talk about Corvette racing. Unfortunately, it's the end of Corvette racing. How did we do in Bahrain?
11:06
It was the last race of the year. Corvette racing actually finished seventh in the class out of the eight hours of brain. And that did close the
11:12
season. It was a historic season though for Corvette Racing's WC team. They already clinched the GTE Amateur Class
11:18
Championship in July with two races to go. In terms of the season itself, Corvette Racing saw the checkered flag
11:23
in three races which included the 24 hours of Lemons, the thousand miles of Seabbring, and the 6 hours at Portoo.
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Whenever you have success like that, it was a pretty good season. Steve, next year we're going to see the transition to the Corvette Z06 GT3R. That's going
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to be campaigned by the British team TF Sport in the new Lemon's GT3 class. So there'll be two cars running there next
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year. We'll be able to start all over again. I believe the season starts in March for the WEC. We'll be watching
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that schedule and seeing where they're going for sure. And speaking of the WEC, Laura Clauser gave a speech at the WEC awards
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banquet. Talk to me about what she said. Yeah, so it was pretty fun. I just caught some videos on Facebook.
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Apparently, she was given an award for like personality of the year in the WC. And I guess this is all due to
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everything they're doing. Of course, they're running the Cadillacs there in addition to Corvette racing this year. And then we got the transition to the
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GT3 team. Cadillac Racing is still going to be over there. So, it's a big deal for us. She got this award and as she
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was up on stage being recognized, it was kind of funny because her presentation was briefly interrupted when Corvette
12:24
Racing team members started blowing the train horn, that train horn that is always there at Lemon's for singling
12:30
lunchtime. And in fact, when the race was over, Brian, they pulled out the train horn and let it rip as well. The
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champions of the class, Corvette racing photographer Richard Prince was there. And this is what he says about it. He says, "In a bad boy tradition started by
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Don Male and perpetuated by David James for many years, the Corvette team rocked Lemons each day leading up to the
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24-hour race by blasting the train horn on Pit Lane at lunchtime." He says, "This rebellious act has been a beloved
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Lemon's tradition for a long time and one of the many things that endeared Corvette racing to the fans the world over." We think that's great. Of course,
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you know, this was Corvette racing team that's doing it. Next year, we're transitioning to the TF Sport. We'd really like to see that Lemon's
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tradition continue over with the new team. Again, it was just something fun. And of course, David James, who was with the team for a long time, kind of a jack
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of all trades, but he also drove the transporters. That was his thing to do. Really cool. I hope they keep up the
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tradition. But we've got video of Laura Clauser. You know, she starts to talk and all a sudden that train horn rips.
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And Steve, they don't stop for like a minute. They let it go and go and go. It's a fun moment there. It's just
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Corvette racing beating Corvette racing. I'll have to look at that video. That'll be fun. In the rumor section, Keith,
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this is big stuff. A GM parts catalog leaked the confirmation of the ZR1 with
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an LT7 engine that's turbo powered. Now, this is V8 with 5.5 L. Right. Exactly.
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Yeah. So, previously Corvette engineering teams two weeks at the Nurburg Ring last month all kinds of speculation about what engine would be
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powering that King of the Hill sports car. Would it be a V8 with turbos? Would it be another performance hybrid like the -ay? Well, the GM parts catalog
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leak. It helped us. Now, we really understand that we're looking at a Corvette ZR1 with a 5.5 L twin turbo.
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And then the engine will also have direct injection, variable valve timing, and active fuel management. Wow.
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One of the big questions about the LT7 remaining is whether we'll have the flat plane crankshaft like the Z06's LT6
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motor, or to help reduce vibrations, will we see the RPMs come down a little bit and we'll have a low revving
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crossplane crank V8? Right. They're still kind of working out those details. But one other thing about this
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leak is that the description show the customer engine build program as well. We haven't had that for the C8 era yet.
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The program was set to debut with the LT6, but with all the issues of rolling out the car last year and stuff like that, those plans were shelled. Maybe
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from the ZR1, we will finally see the engine build return. Some real movement there on getting a better understanding
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of what we're going to see in the ZR1. Yeah, that would be really cool to get that program back again. But the funny
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thing was is first of all we got this leak and then we got another leak that said no the LT7 is a diesel engine. What
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the heck is that all about? You know this is GM I think just having a little fun. They're also cleaning up
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their mess on 12 as we like to say. Right. So it was a guy over in the Corvette forum who found the original leak in the
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GM parts cataloges. These are global cataloges. You'll see a lot of different parts companies but it's all the same data. It's the same image. It's the same
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parts number so to speak. The guy who found it says that GM started scrubbing the parts catalog later that same day
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once the story started coming out and the references for the LT7 were changed from a 5.5 liter twin turbo to a 4.3 L
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V6 diesel motor. And again, we think they're having some fun with us. Of course, we did enjoy putting up a photo of a 1980s Oldsmobile which had the RPOL
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LT7 which was a V6 diesel. Apparently, that only stayed up for a couple days and all that information is
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now gone. But this guy is still digging. And he says he's still finding some stuff with LT7 references. And there's a
15:53
code in there. It's like a Y code and it's a Y and then something after it. And then that appears to designate,
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okay, Stingray. That one's for Z06. This Y is for the ZR1. So that's what we're
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seeing still some references in there. As we get closer to regular production of this car, which could be as early as
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next year, might be actually in 2025, we're going to actually see more of these leaks. That's one of the benefits
16:16
that we have of watching this huge corporation that has so many moving parts. There's no possible way they can
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lock down all that information. And before the internet, no one would have found this stuff. Just one of the benefits that we have. And of course,
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all these Corvette enthusiasts out there, you know, doing the leg work for people like you and me to be able to find this stuff and bring it to light.
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Again, this is just an enthusiast found this info and is having some fun with it. And of course, GM's having some fun with us. So, yeah, it's all in fun.
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Yeah. Don't they realize we're smarter than the average bear? We know where to look for this stuff, you know, and it's
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not April Fool's Day either, so stop the That's right. And Steve, are we supposed to shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh,
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okay. It's a diesel engine." Okay. Yeah. You know, we had that crate at the Corvette Museum that had the LT7 beta
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listed on it. You know, it was like burned into the crate, right? We know LT7. We see in the parts catalog
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and it's not a diesel. They can't fool us. Speaking of rumors, Keith, GM did file a
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patent for a hybrid metal composite two-piece wheel. That sounds interesting. We like to say that GM's reinventing the
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wheel once again. Well, maybe it's the carbon fiber wheel they're reinventing once again, but this is a recent patent application for wheels built from a
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combination of metal and composite material. So, the idea is that it still saves weight with the composite material. You do the visible carbon
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fiber weave on it. You know, you get that look, but it's going to be stronger because you do have the metal barrel.
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With the current lawsuits about cracked wheels on C7 still unsettled, no doubt that GM would really like to see some
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more durable wheels in its future lineup. Anyways, but this might be just one way how they do it. Of course, we don't really have any major reports of
17:45
current production wheels, any kind of cracking there. We did see some cracking on one of the CTF cars and no, the
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pre-production cars bound to happen. They really tear those cars up. We might be looking at some new wheels for a
17:56
future Corvette. Hey, if they're carbon fiber, I'm all in, buddy. I know that. And our last rumor, Keith, and this is
18:02
big stuff. GM may build the Corvette EV and an electric Cadillac, but they're
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going to build it possibly at the Lancing Grand River facility. Yeah. So, within the UAW agreement,
18:12
there's always a section in there that kind of discusses future production. And so, one of the facilities that was being
18:18
targeted by GM to build electric vehicles is that current Lancing Grand River facility in Michigan. I think
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they're building Camaros right now and some Cadillacs. So, they're talking about that might be the facility that builds a Corvette EV. You know, it could
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be the SUV, it could be the sedan that we've been hearing. So, it's really kind of unsure yet. We're also looking at
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possibly 2027 as a start date there, but again, a lot of this stuff's up in the air. We talked about the Corvette SUV if
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an EV comes. You know, Chevrolet already has nine SUVs on the market. So, where do you find the space to put a Corvette
18:49
EV in there as well? That's an SUV. But, you know, it's just one of these things that come out of these agreements. We'll
18:54
be looking to see if there's any other interesting things in there. I don't know if the agreement's been made public for all of us yet. I do know that in
19:01
terms of the UAW strike that the board has approved it, then it goes out to the membership. I think I don't think the
19:06
membership has fully approved it yet, but that's all coming. That sounds good. All right, buddy. Time for our final break. When we come back,
19:12
it's the lighter side of Corvette on deck here on Corvette Today.
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913-384-1550. You're enjoying the only current podcast
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on Corvettes. Corvette Today. Thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that
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host Steve Garrett. Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger is with me every other week. We keep you current and uptodate
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on what's happening with America's sports car. If you want a deeper dive into any of the stories that Keith and I
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cover, you can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we always talk about the lighter side of
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Corvette. Keith, we had the top Corvette dealerships through October just come out. Yeah, we had a source. Sometimes we get
23:06
these, sometimes we don't. It's funny how they do come up and they come in a couple different formats sometimes. You know, we're just happy to get it. But
23:11
what we got was a list of the top 20 Corvette dealers in calendar year 2023 through October 31st. We just had an
23:18
update in September. I guess it was the end of August. The order hasn't really changed. We're still seeing McMulan
23:23
Chevrolet. They're the top dealer for 2023 so far. They're at 1358 deliveries.
23:29
And then second is Sioka Corvette of Atlantic City with 975. You can see McMans really stretched out their lead
23:35
there as part of being the world's biggest Corvette dealer. And congratulations to them. Third place again we have our friend Mike Ferman at
23:41
Kriswell Chevrolet. He's at 467. And then from there the list goes down. Bomb Delland 433, Le Stanford Chevrolet 379.
23:49
Stingray Chevrolet in Florida here at 242. So you can kind of see that we've got the full 20 on there. No big changes
23:56
that we've seen. What I always tell people is that while these are the big dealers, most of them, especially in the
24:02
top 10, sell at MSRP, by far, most Corvettes are bought outside of these dealers. One time I ran the numbers and
24:08
it was like 85% or almost closer to 90% of Corvettes are bought outside this dealer's list. We always recommend talk
24:15
to a top 10 dealer, talk to a top 20 dealer, but also look up the biggest dealer in your neighborhood or your
24:21
state, your region. work with a local one as well and see if you can get that because the big guys still have plenty
24:26
of people on their list, especially even Stingrays, even though we're in the fifth year of the car. While some of the smaller dealerships outside the top 20,
24:33
even outside the top 50, they've already worked through their customer list. And some of them are even ordering dealer stock orders now just to have one or two
24:39
cars on the showroom. So, it's definitely possible for people to walk into a smaller or regional dealership
24:45
and be able to get a car faster than you could get it through the top 10. The biggest question always is MSRP. And
24:50
again, with the market changing on the Stingray especially, many dealers are selling an MSRP, as we talked about last
24:56
time. Some dealers are selling at less than MSRP, right? This is really the perfect time to start looking and buying a Corvette Stingray.
25:03
Good advice, buddy. Good advice for sure. And if you want the ultimate piece of rock and roll history, everybody
25:08
knows Guns and Roses. Everybody knows their league guitar slash. There is a Corvett, a 66 C2 that is up for sale
25:16
that he used to own. Supposedly, this black car, a black 66. It's got a 67 red
25:22
stinger hood on it. 427's got the numbers on the hood there. Supposedly, Slash bought this with his big first
25:28
paycheck from Appetite of Destruction when the band was really first starting to take off. And he had it for years. He
25:34
said he'd drive it around though, but people would come up next to him and see his slashes next to me in a Corvette and
25:40
want to talk about it and stuff. He said he had all the windows tinted, so that stopped people from being able to see him specifically. He said eventually he
25:46
just quit driving it. So he sold it originally in 2011 and it was sold at this Los Angeles auction house that
25:53
specializes in a lot of rock and roll memorabilia. It was sold through Julian's auctions. He got 108,000 for it
26:00
at that 2011 auction. So now Julian's of Beverly Hills is having another auction
26:05
coming up. They're calling it their 20th anniversary of played, worn, and torn rock and roll iconic guitars and
26:11
memorabilia. There are some really cool guitars in this catalog. I went through and kind of looked at some of the stuff they have there, but Slash's old 66
26:18
Corvette is also listed there. The estimates on that car could be a little bit higher than the 108 that it sold
26:24
for. It's got some really cool touches on the car. The keychain still has his name with a little skull on it. Nice.
26:30
It'd be a cool piece to have. I think that they said that the predictions are upwards of $200,000 on the car. Only has
26:36
35,000 m on the car and it is a 427 390. Nice looking Stingray and of course owned by Slash. You'd be able to have
26:43
conversations on that car for hours. Boy, that would be nice looking in the garage, wouldn't it, buddy? That would. Yes, I would.
26:48
And this is a really sad story. I was so sad to see this. A fire destroyed the Tustin, California hanger that hosted
26:55
the reveal of the C8 Corvette back in July of 2019. Yeah. If it wouldn't have been for the
27:00
reveal, it just would have been another piece of news we would have read and said, "Oh, that's sad." You know, it's burning structure. That's never good.
27:05
But because we've all been there, we were there for the reveal on 71819. It hit us a little harder, I guess. Los
27:12
Angeles Daily News reported that 70 firefighters were battling this fire. It's like one of the largest wooden
27:17
structures ever built. 17 stories high. They brought in Chinuk helicopters to
27:22
dump water on the roof because there's no water actually on the property. They were running hoses way far away to get
27:27
water to the structure and they were bringing in tanker trucks that had their own water. Eventually, it just got out of control and we just made the
27:34
decision, you got to let it burn and collapse and then we'll deal with it there. So, unfortunately, the fire started overnight and then by the next
27:40
day, it just had this gaping hole in it. Again, just a little sad because we were there. There was a bunch of movies shot
27:46
there. Austin Powers, you know, where he goes back into the future and that VW, he's backing into all their scientific
27:52
equipment and stuff like that. That was shot there. There was a Star Trek movie shot there. X Files, Jag. There was a
27:58
couple commercials shot there. Again, it was this huge structure, so they could really do a lot with it. Sad to see it
28:03
go. Yeah, the community there, they've been trying to do some different things to save it, but now might just decide to raise it.
28:09
They have that extra land there they can do something with, but very sad to see because we were all there on the night of 71 181 19.
28:16
Yeah. And our final story, Keith, Corvette is one of the 25 cars that actually holds the best value over a
28:22
5-year period, which is encouraging news. Yeah. And you know what we're talking about though actually right with this
28:27
study is the end of the C7 era which is 2018 to 2019. Those cars are now 5 years
28:33
old. We say that the research geeks at IC cars released this study and they were looking at that. They said that the
28:38
average 5-year depreciation on all cars currently is 38.8%.
28:43
But if you bought a C7 Corvette back in 2018 or 19, you're going to make out a little bit better because our Corvettes
28:48
are depreciating at about 27.5%. So a little bit better than the average. And then the average difference from
28:54
MSRP is said to be $22,712. The depreciation rate put Corvette at
29:00
number 23 on this list of 25 best vehicles retaining their values. We obviously think that's, you know, hey,
29:05
we'll take that. That's pretty darn good. But it was the Porsche 911 coupe that led the way. They only had a 9.3
29:11
depreciation after 5 years. And the Porsche 718 Cayman was second at 17.6.
29:17
Actually, four Porsches on the list. There was three Chevys on the list. And both the Chevys actually did better than the Corvette as well. There's a Camaro
29:23
at number seven and then I believe a Chevy Spark at number 19. I think as you get into next year when we start to see
29:29
the first C8s, we'll probably move up on that list just because there was all that high-end demand that be the
29:35
beginning and people kept those cars. It's a good thing for Corvette. We've always done well on these kinds of charts, but there's a lot of competition
29:41
out there, too. Yeah, definitely. Well, buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today. When you and I talk next, we'll be after
29:47
Thanksgiving. That's hard to believe. We're going to be listening to Christmas music and of course maybe you have to open with a little Mariah Carey, right?
29:53
Yeah. No, let's let's not go there. We'll be sick of it by then. Absolutely. Well, thanks a lot, buddy.
29:59
And I'll talk to you in two weeks. All right. Thank you, Steve. After you see you out there, keep waving, folks. Thanks for listening to Corvette Today.
30:05
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30:53
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31:00
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